Obama: Syria situation ‘threatens our national security’

President Barack Obama called the situation in Syria “a challenge to the world” and said it is the responsibility of the United States to stop the Assad regime from using chemical weapons.

“We don’t want the world to be paralyzed,” Obama said Friday at the White House. “And frankly, part of the challenge that we end up with here is a lot of people think something should be done and nobody wants to do it. And that’s not an unusual situation, and that’s part of what allows over time the erosion of these kinds of international prohibitions unless somebody says, ‘No.’”

“Part of our obligation as a leader in the world is making sure that when you have a regime that is willing to use weapons that are prohibited by international norms on their own people, including children, that they are held to account,” he said.

Obama described the military action he is considering as a short-term offensive without ground troops.

“We’re not considering any open-ended commitment,” Obama said before a meeting with the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. “We’re not considering any boots on the ground approach.”

Obama described the Syrian situation, as Secretary of State John Kerry did earlier Friday, as a threat to the United States.

“This kind of attack threatens our national security interests,” he said, “further threatening friends and allies like Israel and Turkey and Jordan, and it increases the risk that chemical weapons will be used in the future. … I have said before, and I meant what I said, the world has an obligation to make sure that we maintain the norm against the use of chemical weapons.”

Obama’s comments came two hours after Kerry said “we know” Bashar Assad is behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria, and that Obama is prepared to attack the dictator’s regime.

Previewing possible American strikes on Assad’s government, Kerry went to great rhetorical lengths to distinguish the Syrian attacks from the years-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even the 2011 intervention in Libya.

But he made an argument similar to what President George W. Bush’s administration made before the Iraq war began in 2003: That the United States has the responsibility and capability to remove a dangerous dictator with access to weapons of mass destruction.

“Now we know that after a decade of conflict, the American people are tired of war. Believe me, I am too,” Kerry said. “But fatigue does not absolve us of our responsibility. Just longing for peace does not necessarily bring it about. And history would judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turned a blind eye to a dictator’s wonton use of weapons of mass destruction against all warnings, against all common understand of decency. These things, we do know.”

The report found that the chemical attack included the use of a nerve agent and that it killed 1,429 people, including 426 children.

“Our intelligence community has carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack and I will tell you it is more than mindful of the Iraq experience,” Kerry said. “We will not repeat that moment.”

Kerry said President Barack Obama will act regardless of the level of international cooperation. He said there is no expectation the United Nations Security Council will formally approve the American action because Russia is sure to block any effort to do so.

“President Obama will ensure that the United States of America makes our own decisions, on our own timeline, based on our values and our interests,” Kerry said.

Yet Kerry said again that Obama will limit the military action: No ground troops and no involvement in a cleaning up a post-attack Syria already stricken by years of war.

“We also know that we have a president who does what he says that he will do. And he has said very clearly that whatever decision he makes in Syria, it will bear no resemblance to Afghanistan, Iraq or even Libya,” Kerry said. “It will not involve any boots on the ground. It will not be open ended and it will not assume responsibility for a civil war that is already well underway.”